Museums aspire to ensure the long-term safety and preservation of their collections while displayed and while kept in storage. In order to achieve this goal, museums need to monitor and control the temperature and relative humidity in the museum and in the storage area. Improper environmental levels may harm the artefacts due to deterioration of the art exhibits at significantly greater rates.

Application: Museum temperature and humidity monitoring

Organization: Eretz Israel Museum

Background:

Museums aspire to ensure the long-term safety and preservation of their collections while displayed and while kept in storage. In order to achieve this goal, museums need to monitor and control the temperature and relative humidity in the museum and in the storage area. Improper environmental levels may harm the artefacts due to deterioration of the art exhibits at significantly greater rates.

About the Customer: The Eretz Israel Museum is a multidisciplinary (historical, anthropological and archaeological) museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. The museum was founded in 1958 and has its artefacts organized in a variety of exhibition pavilions. Each pavilion is dedicated to a different subject: glassware, ceramics, coins and copper in addition to a planetarium.

Key Customer Challenges:

The museum needed a system to monitor the temperature and relative humidity conditions in the storage area storing the museum’s collections.

The demand was for a system to provide online information to enable constant evaluation of the current state and provide alerts via SMS if there is a deviation from the pre-defined range (temperature of 20 °C and relative humidity of 50%).

The museum has temperature and humidity sensors connected to the air-conditioning system and the humidity dehydration system, but the museum requested an independent system that could alert in case of deviations and back up the air-conditioning system in case of malfunction or flooding.

The museum is constructed as a campus with 9 buildings; therefore the data has to be transmitted from the storage area to the main computer in the conservation lab, requiring a system with reliable communication.

DataNet Implementation:The installation comprised three Mini DataNet DNL810-BXT loggers measuring temperature and relative humidity, in addition to one DNR900 Receiver. The administrator computer is located at the conservation lab, which is in another building distanced 100 meters away. The distance issue was solved by connecting the Receiver to the museum’s LAN network (USB over IP). Data is sampled and transmitted to the central computer in the conservation lab. When data crosses the pre-defined thresholds, alarm notifications are sent to the control room, and SMS alerts are also applied, allowing technicians and security personnel to immediately address issues that arise.

Measurable Results:

Remaining constantly appraised – alerts and updates by cellular phone enable full control of the system and the ability to take proactive responses.

USB over IP – solving the distance issue andenablesreliable transmission of data from the Receiver in the storage are to the control room located in a different building.